Healthcare Technology Featured Article

June 09, 2014

Obamacare Team Readying For November Relaunch

While most call centers handling Obamacare are starting to reduce their staff, there are still some people who will need to enroll in the Affordable Care Act. That might have been a problem if this was six months ago, when people were reporting all kinds of problems with the ACA website. An awful lot of call centers responsible for dealing with Obamacare were walking people through a rather confusing and frustrating website. Version 2.0 of the site is expected to be quite a bit easier to work through.

The site has officially been dubbed Marketplace 2.0 and the changes that will make it that much better are expected to be live when the next open enrollment period begins on November 15. Among the upgrades will be a much simpler interface, a plan comparison tool and a login system which has reportedly been rebuilt from the ground up.

Plan Compare 2.0 is likely going to be getting the most mileage from the casual user. The new system will be able to retain data more reliably while also being able to guide users through the signup process better. There will also be a window shopping feature that allow for people to check out insurance plans without having to login and input their personal information.

The bottom line is that there were more than 5.45 million people who used the old site, warts and all. The second go-round, the Obama administration wants to make sure that each and every person who needs to use the marketplace will be able to do so with fewer headaches—by upgrading features the old site offered, while building other features up from scratch.

Most important of all, is that the new system is being built so that more situations can be browsed through using the website. The officials who are putting the site together say the process will take a bit longer and may not be ready for November, but the site will continue to be improved all the time.